When broken down into the individual mechanical and neurological aspects, the simple act of communicating is actually a very complicated task. At the mechanical level, we are manipulating sounds and conveying sound waves to someone else, who, through speech perception and speech sound memory, is digesting these sound waves and associating them with words to understand what we are saying.
But when you dive deeper, there are many more aspects to this seemingly trivial action. We store those words and sound units in our memory, recognizing and remembering the speech sounds, supporting language learning and discerning different dialects.
How Auditory Processing Works
Auditory processing is the action of converting received sound waves into neural signals and sending them to our auditory cortex. The language processing and identifying regions of our brain receive these neural signals and associate fine aspects such as pitch, volume, and phonemes with words. All of this happens in virtually milliseconds.
Phonemes are very specific individual speech sounds that are crucial to the building blocks of words. Accuracy is the name of the game here. When speech is quiet, or there are high background distractions, we need sound discrimination to identify specific phonemes.
Phonetic Recognition and Sound Discrimination
Some phonemes have subtle differences and can sound virtually identical. A prime example of this is the difference between /f/ and /th/ in English. Listeners who have not been exposed to these particular phonemes or don’t have similar ones in their language may struggle to discriminate between the speech sounds.
Phonetic recognition helps us distinguish these phonemes faster and more accurately, as the brain practises recognizing these sounds and builds stronger sound discrimination. Sound discrimination is also used to help filter out background noises and discern speech sounds.
Memory and Speech Sound Storage
Phonological memory is part of our working memory and stores speech sounds so that we can use them to communicate. This part of our brain is always active and allows us to understand what someone is saying to us, repeat unfamiliar words, or learn new vocabulary.
Our brains can draw out words from our speech sound storage, helping us to speak fluently, form coherent sentences and learn new words.
The Brain and Language Processing
Brain and language learning can be split into two main areas: one for listening to what is being said and the other for forming sentences of our own.
Broca’s Area is located in the frontal lobe and is used to articulate speech and manipulate sounds. The other region is Wernicke’s Area, in the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe, split into the left and right sides, manages emotions and process information from the senses. Wernicke’s Area is key for language processing and understanding what is being said.
These two regions work together to support our phonological awareness. This is the ability to consciously recognize speech and produce speech.
Auditory Learning and Phonological Awareness
Our speech sound recognition improves the more we are exposed to languages. Children use auditory learning to associate specific sounds with meanings, and from there, they can develop enunciation. Phonological awareness can also be enhanced through word games, learning rhymes, syllable counting, and tongue twisters to help listeners become more attuned to the nuances of certain languages or dialects. There are also auditory training programs that are specifically designed to strengthen our phonological awareness and learning for long-term academic success.
Neural Response to Speech
We can see the ways in which our brain responds to speech in real-time using modern brain imaging. Familiar sounds can produce neural activity spikes as we recognize the speech in memory. Neural response to speech reveals how deeply interconnected hearing, memory, and language really are. When speech sounds are consistently reinforced, the brain forms faster and more reliable pathways for recognizing and recalling them. This neural efficiency is key to fluent speech perception and production.
Speech Sound in Language Development
Our ability to recognize and remember speech sounds is not just important for talking and listening, but it is a key player in learning to read and write. The more efficiently the brain can process and store speech sounds, the more easily we can acquire vocabulary, form sentences, and comprehend spoken or written language.
With strong speech sound recognition, we build our skills from casual conversation to literacy comprehension, which is why it is so important in early childhood development.